Mother's Day

So Sunday was Mother's Day here in France.
This is the card Estelle made me at her nounou's.

It rained off and on all day. We are in the middle of one of those WILD periods of weather that reminds you of where we live. First of all, it's warm. Today it is downright hot - 75 degrees Farenheit. But the rain is what takes the cake; it has a
fine silt in it coming over the sea from Africa. This coats EVERYTHING in a layer of brown sandy grime. Cars, balconies, shoes, windows, awnings, strollers, shutters, clotheslines. All the French get grumpy and the tourists wonder what the hell is going on.
Thankfully the silt didn't start until yesterday. And so on my Mother's Day Sunday, we just had to contend with the rain.
The day began when I took a cue from my nephew Cole and said to Thomas "When are you going to start doing nice things for me?"
This resulted in:
--Thomas making pancakes for the first time in his life. In general, ok. Though that raw one did set me back a bit. Thankfully my brother's syrup masked any imperfections.
--Going to the large modern art museum right in our neighborhood. Estelle loved it:


Estelle kept pointing at this one and saying "C'est QUI ça?"



Below Estelle is in the Niki de Saint Phalle room - a very famous artist from the late 60's and onwards. You can see a large B&W of her over Estelle on the left.

The museum has a rooftop terrace that is pretty cool, views over the whole city and the sea. This photo shows the Theatre National de Nice, where I am a season subscriber.

Here are Estelle and Thomas on the next walkway over from me on the roof. Behind them is the hill in Nice called "The Chateau", where there used to be a very old chateau, until Louis XIV got so sick of people fighting over it that he just leveled the thing. Now there are ruins. Damn that Sun King!
Also behind them you can make out the incredible historic cemetery that is also up on the hill. This daughter of a genealogist is mighty smitten with that place. I did have a moment up there on that roof in the city looking across to that cemetery - thinking of Memorial Day Weekend in America, and the years and years of making the rounds to all the cemeteries with my parents, trunk full of geraniums and soil, jugs of water, spades, and picnic lunches. Tracing the letters on the stones with my finger, scraping off lichen and moss. Hunting around for plot markers. The good thing about loving cemeteries is, it doesn't matter what country you live in, you can always find one.

A little tropical garden also up on the rooftop, all designed by Yves Klein who had a big connection with the museum, along with Arman. Look closely and you can see this photo is also a self-portrait. What can I say - inspired by the locale!



This is how my family feels when it rains most of a Sunday.

After making me lunch and letting me listen to and sing along with show tunes (Pippin), Thomas took Estelle out for a bikeride while I did some work.
I should also show my other Mother's Day gift: When the nounou had Estelle hand me this in a gift bag for Mother's Day, I almost ran out of the room. It's official, I thought. My days of macaroni-and-glue-on-a-paper-plate-artwork have begun. Good lord.
She made it herself - with a little help, of course!
But, seeing as we spent the day in the Modern Art museum, this is, in a sense, modern art. Happy Mother's Day to me!

Play dates, and more play dates

Yesterday morning we started off just Estelle and I in a park we had never been too. Of course this other little boy's pulltoy was much more interesting than the stroller I had brought with us for her. However, that was a hit with him.

Here's what you had to love about socialist France. All the playgrounds are basically the same. Same springy horses, same structures with ladders and slides. So these photos you all see that all look the same are in fact different parks!

Back home at lunch, she needed her cherry rain boots to take a run on her bike around the apt.

Park #2 of the day: we met up with Lucie and Noelle. Lucie and Noelle were born the same day. Again, everyone else's toys are always more fun.

Park #3 of the day: let's meet up with Elliot again. Different park. And who is this little blond cutie getting in on the action? Her name was Leyna. We liked her.
Note the red box in Estelle's grubby little fist. Estelle was fascinated by Elliot's raisins. I've tried raisins on her and got The Grimace. But when they are Elliot's raisins, they suddenly become attractive.

Today's rainy play date was with Mael. His parents have been gone a long time with him, sailing a old wooden sailboat from Dubai to Hurghuda through the Red Sea. This has been a long project for them and Mael's dad renovated the whole boat and got together a team to sail and sponsors for the money. Pretty damn interesting stuff.
Next summer they will bring it from Hurghuda thru the Mediterranean and into France, probably to Toulon. We will get a free looksee since I did the translating for some of their stuff. Check my list of Favorite links at the top of this page and you can link to their boat site - The Nizwa. There is an English version of the site - but I didn't translate that part so don't hold me responsible for the mistakes!
So today Estelle and Mael rolled around on their funky furniture from Dubai.

And lastly - the best rainy-day playdate there is - Daddy and some Duplo blocks after bathtime.

A day in the life

What self-respecting French girl doesn't enjoy the pre-bath hour with a good hunk of cheese just checking things out from the balcony during the late afternoon sunlight?


No longer on the Island of Misfit Toys, this doll is getting fed in her loving home.

And her doll "Rougette" is enjoying a nice plastic french fry that is the same size as her.

Don't all great artists work naked?

Da Vinci Lily

This is Lillian, my almost 17-yr old niece who lives in Cabot, Vermont.

This is Notre Dame. Hopefully no one needs an explanation.

Now let's hear a little story she told me on the phone last night.
Last month, whilst I was in Vermont, Lily went on a school trip to...France. The irony. Fabulous homestay near Toulouse, a few days touring about in the south, wrapped up with a few days in Paris.
What you should know about Lillian is that she was a US Senate Page this past fall for about 6 months. This meant she lived in Washington DC and made a smidge of money running notes and other stuff for Vermont's high-profile Senator, Patrick Leahy. I won't go on and on about this, but its a big deal. Like only 35 students in the whole country big deal. Cabot produces something other than cheese - smart girls.
So while there, she naturally made friends from all over the map. One was a girl from VA who happenned to be travelling in France shortly before Lillian, and when this girl from the Commonwealth returned, she called Lily (still in Cabot) and said "When you go to Paris, go into Notre Dame. Walk to the left. Go to the 6th altar down the left side. Look around the right column where there are cracks and grooves. I left you something."
To me, this is some high-class treasure-hunting. I said "Who had this idea? What made her think to do it?" Just an idea, she said.
So over a month later, off went Lily tiptoeing around in Notre Dame, blood rushing, heart pounding, counting columns and altars and reaching around and....voila! A note to her, from her friend.
It's so Da Vinci code, I can't stand it. I want to play this game, just not sure where or with who yet.

The Weekend

Play dates and more play dates.
Here is Estelle at the park yesterday morning with Elliot and Pauline. Sadly, Pauline and her parents (Sylvianne is her mom) are moving away too at the end of June, to Lyon. Good for them, sad for me.


Last night our friend Pierre came over for dinner and to watch "FOOT MULTIPLEX". This is a big event. It is the last day of regular season games in the French soccer league, and the last chance for teams to clinch their ranking which determines - oh, who the hell knows but it is all VERY important and significant and dramatic. If team A playing team B wins by 3 points and team X playing team Y gets beat by only 1 point, then it means....something truly meaningful, but I can't tell you what. Thus there were 10 different games going on simultaneously, and instead of broadcasting just one, the cable channel with the monopoly on soccer (Canal+) shows a rotating handful of them on the screen all as little squares and whenever there is a goal there is a sound of a bugle, like the king has just arrived. Then the game in question where the goal has just been scored zooms to the forefront of the screen. Last night was record-breaking in that 43 goals were scored over the spectrum of these 10 games. This meant a LOT of bugle noises spitting out of my TV, lots of hollering both inside and outside my apartment. I just sat quietly at my computer translating.
Before the bugle bonanza began, and before bedtime, Pierre and Estelle engaged in a their own record-breaking - how many stuffed animal pins can you knock over with your squishy bowling ball. I would have bugled had I known what the evening had in store.

Also yesterday, Estelle suddenly played "DODO" (sleep) with all her toys. Everyone had to lie on the rug and "fait dodo". Papa was no exception.

Today it was up at out by 9 a.m. for a little excursion. This girl was ready to go. So was her bebe.

So where we were off to so early? Just a 15 minute drive away to St. Jean Cap Ferrat, where there is a walking path around the edge of this famous peninsula (see St. Patrick's Day post about the hotel where I taught one day). It was fun and beautiful. The beach near here is lovely and perfect for a toddler - unlike Nice, which is huge pebbles/stones and does not slope gracefully. We will go back with our shovels and suits! There were people in the water at 10:30 a.m.!

Looking east

Below in this photo you see the Cap de Nice just above Thomas' head. This is looking west

The bay of Villefranche-sur-Mer behind Thomas and Estelle, a very famous bay for dropping anchor off-shore for cruiseboats and yachts.

Plage Passable


And this afternoon's outing- up to the chateau hill overlooking Nice to the playground. The girl has mastered the drinkbox.

The masts you see behind them are in the port of Nice this time. Looking east, sort of towards where we had been this morning!

Last ride before calling it a day.

7

May 15 is here again and so we look back on some ordinary moments from the extraordinary life of my Dad, gone 7 years ago today.
If you were to look at last year's blog from today, you'd read all the things Dad could do, and did do. One thing Dad knew about was cars. I don't mean he admired them or collected them, or even cared. But he knew how they worked, and what mattered to him was getting the car to work for him. He was not partial to a car for any reason other than its ability to run and do what he needed it to. He didn't name his cars, and the second he couldn't be bothered to fix it any more and could scrape together enough money to get something that ran better, he would. At least that's how I remember it.
Before his 38 years at General Electric, Dad was many things, but mostly he was a car mechanic, like his father had been before his untimely death at 49. A few years ago I was visiting my Aunt Pearl in Vermont in a little-known but much revered place called Lyford Pond near Cabot. Pearl is my uncle Warren's widow (Dad's older brother) and at 84 years old she can tell you just about anything, despite a multitude of health issues and being blind now. There on her wall was a photo I had never seen - a youthful but adult Dad, leaning against a car, on something that looked like a beach.

And so I learned the story of Bruce Young and his car. In the Fall of 1946, at 22 years old, Dad got hired to drive a local man to Florida for the winter. It seems Bruce Young's parents had been relatively well-off (as opposed to my dad's own family who had suffered greatly during the Depression) and had left him their car when he died. He had some health problems and engaged Dad to take him to Florida to escape the unforgiving Vermont winter. Pearl's own mother, who was Mr. Young's housekeeper, also went along to keep house for him down there. We know nothing more, except that Dad worked for a Pontiac dealer while he was down there, and that he somehow convinced Mr. Young to trade in his car for a newer one before the drive back to Vermont in the spring. Those of us who knew him are not surprised at all by this part of the story.

The photo above is interesting because it has a note on it in Dad's handwriting saying "Wayne in Orlando, FLA, Dec 1946". This was the winter of 46-47, a good 12 years or so before the Daytona 500 was established. Were there already other car races going on down there at the time? Was the area already known for car racing? Was Dad making a joke of posing with the car on the beach, knowing his interest in cars and engines? We'll never know.

This photo is of Dad and his 5 siblings during the War, c. 1943, thus about 3 years earlier than the previous photo. Warren in full uniform who spent time overseas. Eleanor, also in uniform, who was in the WAVES. Elaine next to Dad and Becky on the far right who you might remember from a recent post on the porch of her 1834 historic stage-coach inn home. And young Dick, so much younger than the rest.
At the time of the photo their father was alive, probably it was he that took the photo - and it is hard not to look at all 6 of them and think about how little they knew of what lay ahead of them, good and bad. They may have thought that the war Warren and Eleanor were fighting would be the last, given its scope. Korea and Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan were at best a name in geography class. They had no idea that their own father would soon and shockingly be taken away from them. They probably thought the world lay in front of them, that all was possible, that there would be a cure for cancer by May 15, 2001, almost 60 years after this day in front of their home in Barton. But happily they didn't know, and so their smiles are genuine, and young, proud and full of hope.
As we all are.

Angers

Yet another long weekend here in France has come and gone - this time Armistice and Pentecost and presto! The 5-day weekend.
We flew up to Angers. Here are a few photos:
The fun cars in the airport you can ride for a euro! What! A euro! That IS highway robbery!

Talking a walk to go to the butcher means a shoulder ride.

Picking dandeliions.

The church where we got married, BE. (before Estelle)
Back in the day when we only had to focus on me, I mean, each other. Sigh.

Papie taking his afternoon nap upright on his stool.

Thomas and Estelle examining the impatients in the back yard

A visit from good family friend Sebastien and his wife Gauchia with their new baby Adrien. This little boy is only 1 1/2 kilos away from Estelle and he is 13 months, I repeat 13 months, YOUNGER. He is, needless to say, a bruiser. He means business. Estelle was totally smitten. He is another bilingual-would-be baby - French and Polish.


Why pay a euro for a cheap ride at the airport, when you can ride in your old infant seat on top of the dining room table! It is better than the merry-go-round! And the people working the joint are MUCH more attentive.

A little down time in Butterfly Alley, the reading nook in Estelle's room.

One day we went to visit a very nearby chateau that somehow I have never been to yet. Chateau de Plessy-Bourre. Old. Like 14th century or something. Hubby and I had a guided tour while her highness went wild on the grounds with her grandparents.






Back in Nice and up to her old tricks = wearing bakery cartons as hats and being a pain to go down at night. Dang.